-

no

How

of the body, were all unavailing. He seemed resigned to go at his Father's bidding. His mind was stayed on Jesus. Not a murmuring word escaped his lips. He did not communicate much for your consolation, nor did we ourselves enjoy his dying counsels. He said he wished to say much, but was not able. His reason appeared perfect till the last, and he could speak a single sentence in a low whisper till an hour before he breathed out his spirit. Mr. Graves who at present lives more than a mile from us, was with him from nine in the evening till he died. He consoled him by the promises of God, and his own holy conversation. So often has brother G. been at the threshhold of death, that he seems stranger there. Brother H. requested him about 12 o'clock, to commend him again to the Father of Spirits. Nature was now fast giving way. The spirit struggled to be free. The pains, the "dying strife," was inexpressibly severe. I never had such a view of what the King of terrors is, when sent to take away the spirit of man. imperious his demand, how incorrigible, how awful, his summons. About half past three o'clock he was attacked with a spasm which continued, with short intervals of apparent quiet, for nearly half an hour. After this he sunk down in quiet. It was nature's last struggle. He spake no more; but sweetly fell asleep in Jesus. As "the light began to dawn,"-"while it was yet dark," his disembodied spirit rose from the prison of its clay, and began its everlasting song. Favored brother, who could have chosen a more desirable hour to bid farewell to earth. At this hour the Lord of life arose and triumphed over death. Once, after a paroxism of pain, he asked the doctor how long he thought he could live. Again he said to Mrs. R. "It is an awful thing to die." On being asked what message he would send to our brethren in Bombay, he said, "Give them my love-tell them to love one another." To us who stood around his bed, on being asked what he would say to us, he replied, "Live near to God."

His remains, owing to the heat of the climate, were interred the evening of the day on which he died, in the English burying ground. Mr. Jackson, the chaplain, Col. P., commandant of the station, the physicians, and most of the officers of the military, accompanied us to the burying ground. After the reading of the church of England service by the Rev. Mr. Jackson, we deposited the remains of your beloved son, and of our dear brother and fellowlaborer, in his lonely grave. Alas! what is man! Surely life is vapor. How soon has the vapor vanished.

Here, dear afflicted friends, ends the story of your beloved William-cut off in the morning of life-snatched away just as he had begun to tell the dying heathen of Jesus and the resurrection. He had been

in the country fourteen months, and had become acquainted with the Mahratta language, so far as to be able to converse with the people in private, and preach to some extent in a more public way. He lived for the most part of the time, after the death of Elizabeth, with us. We did what we could to make him happy. But the hand of the Lord seemed heavy upon him. Life seemed a burden to him. With you, the silver cords which bind parents and child are now severed, and you are left to mourn. With us the tender and strong ties which cement the hearts of long tried, and long beloved friends, of fellow Christians, but more than all of fellow missionaries in a strange land are now broken. We sympathise with you-we feel for you-we pray that God whom we serve may comfort you, and make you love the cause of missions more for the great sacrifice you have now been called to make in this best of all causes. Although God try his people, and cut off those who in obedience to his commands go forth to preach Christ to the heathen; we are still sure that the "cause of missions is the cause of God."

May this afflictive dispensation be abundantly sanctified to the church of Christ, and to the cause of missions. Come, all ye who loved our dear brother, come fall at the feet of sovereign mercy, and there plead that the indignation of the Lord may pass by, and spare us.

I am, dear friends, yours affectionately.

Ceylon.

H. READ.

MR. WINSLOW'S JOURNAL OF AN EXCURSION TO COLOMBO AND THE INTERIOR OF THE

ISLAND.

The Voyage to Colombo.

Jaffna, February 14, 1832.-It being thought advisable for one of our number to wait upon the new governor, to make interest for the removal of the restrictions upon us, and in other ways to promote the objects of the mission, and one of our children needing a change of air, I left Oodooville this afternoon with Mrs. W. and two children, and came down to Jaffnapatam, where we are detained for the night with our Wesleyan friends; the boat in which we are to go, not being ready, according to agreement.

18. Mrs. W. was quite ill last night so that we feared she would be unable to proceed, but was so relieved this morning as to come on board the dhong. To one who has never seen a boat of this description, it would be a curiosity. The one in which we are is about the size of a man-of-war's long-boat; though unlike that, it is sharp at both ends and very narrow. It is probably much like the boats with which Alexander

descended the Indus, 2,160 years ago; for the people in India are as little given to change in their maritime affairs as in others. The march of intellect neither accelerates nor disturbs, the even course of things here. The dhong, either large or small, is the common vessel of the country. The natives seldom attempt any improvement upon it, although its construction is such as to have commonly only one considerable sail, and to go only with a fair wind. As to beating against the wind, or sailing with a stiff breeze or heavy sea, they never think of it. They seldom venture out of sight of land, or sail in the night. They have no decks to carry off the water should a sea break over them, but are in this respect, however large, like open boats. They have however a sort of deck, or more properly roof, formed of sticks and leaves in the manner of thatch rising from two sides through the greater part of the boat's length; and there is an opening near the middle for putting in and taking out the lading this forming the hold, cabin and all. Near this opening is placed a large box filled with sand, or a kind of hearth made of stone, for cooking. When going in one of these conveyances, if you have not a palankeen, or something of the kind, to place on the top of the roof, in which to screen yourself from the sun, you must be content with a place in the hold close to this hearth, and have its heat and smoke added to the direct rays of a tropical sun, in a place which the wind never thinks of visiting, and could not unless like the Irishman's, it "should blow up and down." With two little children, in a dhong, we are likely to prove pretty fully the pleasures of this mode of travelling. In America, where one may generally step into a stage or steamboat, and find every accommodation provided which he may need, he can know scarcely any thing of the difficulties of going either by land or water in this country. Every thing you may need must be taken with you, and your conveyance is both slow and uncomfortable.

20. Yesterday being Sabbath, we lay by at Condatchy. preached in the morning at the house of the only protestant in the place, a man of European descent. A room of considerable size was pretty well filled with heathens, and Roman Catholics. Of these a few were women. All listened with great attention, and received with much avidity, some tracts which 1 of fered them, and asked for more. There are several villages in the neighborhood and around them some cultivation, but most of the country between Manaar and this place is a mere desert of sand, covered with a stinted shrubbery. This year, as there has been very little rain, every thing seems almost burnt up. Near Manaar many palmyra trees have lost all their foliage, and appear standing here and there in the topes, like the naked masts of a ship. The pearl

fishery here, takes place at the intervals of two or three, or sometimes six or seven years, as the oysters come to perfection, and bring in a large profit to the government. The wind proving favorable this morning, we came on near to Calpenteen, where the boatmen run into a bay about three o'clock in the afternoon, being afraid to proceed on account of the wind and sea being too high for their slender boat. Calpenteen was, under the Dutch, a place of some importance, having a fort and a large native population. The fort is now almost in ruins. There is here a depot for salt, which is collected and sold in large quantities, for the supply of the interior. Salt being gathered on the marshes, in all the northern parts of the island, might be made an important article of export. At Jaffna it is sometimes gathered in such quantities, that the government, finding it difficult to guard it from the natives and to secure the sale of what is laid up in their stores, cause large quantities of it to be mixed with sand or thrown into the sea.

22. This morning we found ourselves near Negombo, and learned from a fisherman that a dhong was lost there last night, having sprung a leak by laboring in the heavy sea. It was run on shore and went to pieces. The wind to-day, however, has not been strong, and though we hoped to reach Colombo before night we have been able only to come to anchor at the entrance of the harbor late in the evening.

At Colombo.

Feb. 24. Called this morning on Archdeacon Glenie. Found him most favorably disposed towards our mission and ready to aid us by every means in his power. The arch-deacon resides at St. Sebastians, where arch-deacon Twistleton formerly

was.

most in the extreme part of the suburbs, at It is nearly a mile from the fort, althe southeast, on a rising ground, which commands a view of the lake in which is Slave Island. The situation is very pleas ant; and the mansion large and handsomely furnished. Mrs. Glenie returned a few months since from England, where she had been with her children several years for their education. In the afternoon we dined with our Wesleyan friends at Colpetty, about a mile south of the fort where they have a house most favorably situated on the sea-shore. It is now occupied by Mr. Hardy, Mr. Clough having lately left for Eng land. The difference in the temperature of this place where they have a fresh seabreeze, and that at the mission-house in the suburbs east of the fort, is very perceptible. Most of the gentlemen at Colombo, not obliged by the duties of their station to remain in the fort, live either north or south of it, near the sea, in gardens surrounded by topes of cocoanut and other trees. Colpetty and other places on the sea-shore are

13. There being no prospect of the gov-|| ernor's coming down at present, and it being still desirable that I should see him, I have concluded to go into the interior; for which purpose I left Cotta this morning and am this afternoon to proceed part of the way to Kandy by the nail coach which has lately commenced running as far as Mahaina, about half the distance to Kandy.

Excursion into the Interior.

March 14. I left, as proposed, and came on before 12 o'clock at night to the small inn lately established at Mahaina, the only one on the island. After taking some refreshment, I proceeded the same night on my way to this place, by a sort of litter in which I suffered in the night from the heavy dews, and in the day from the scorching sun, but arrived in safety and in health, with the exception of a sick headache, at this place a little after mid-day. Have been most kindly received by Mr. and Mrs. Browning of the Church Missionary Society. Though I passed along much of the road by night, as there was a good moon, I saw enough to know that it every where presents scenes most attractive to one brought up in the vicinity of mountains, and who has for many years seen little else than one unvaried plain. On leaving Colombo you enter the country by what is called the Grand Pass, where is a long bridge over the Calany Ganga, laid on boats. Your road then lies for some miles through extended rice fields, near the river. It is here perfectly straight and generally raised several feet above the fields. It is made almost as smooth and hard as a floor by a process of pounding into it a lateritious stone called Cabbook, and covering it with coarse sand. As the road reaches the higher lands it is so laid out and so levelled by cutting down the hills, filling up the valleys, and blasting the rocks, as to leave very few inequalities of ascent and descent. It is indeed a grand military way from Colombo to Kandy, 72 miles, made at the expense it is said of 200,000 pounds, including several bridges. Captain Dawson, the engineer, who had the principal share in laying out the road, and conducting the operations upon it for several years, has since died and a monument is about being erected to his memory at the head of the most difficult pass. In this pass the road runs along the side of a mountain, so that on one hand you see cliffs some hundred feet above, and a precipice as many below you, and look down upon considerable hills rising out of the deep vallies. Some of the mountains are naked at the top, ending in bold and barren rocks, others are covered with large trees and under-brush, even to their summits. They do not generally extend in ridges, or connected chains, but are as separate masses thrown together without order and sometimes one upon another,

They are generally conical at the top, or more or less approach that form. To me the vast piles of rocks, and occasionally a small cataract tumbling over them, having washed bare immense ledges, and separated from them, blocks of stone of every size and figure, was to me, who have not looked on any wild mountain scenery since I left New England, a most enchanting prospect.

As the governor was not expected to return to Kandy immediately, it became necessary for Mr. Winslow to proceed 52 miles further into the interior. The following Sabbath he remained at Ramboodie, being most hospitably entertained by Lieut. Roddy, of the Ceylon rifle regiment. He held an interesting meeting with the families of two English sergeants.

Newcra Ellia.

March 19. Left Ramboodie early this morning and came on slowly to this place. The first eleven miles is ascending, as the road rises more than 4,000 feet, and then descends about 1,000, to come into the valley at Newera Ellia, which is estimated to be 6,200 feet above the sea; while some of the mountains around it are 8,200 feet, or higher than Adams Peak, a short distance

to the west. The road ascends the mountain by a very zigzag elbowing course, turning back upon itself so that in places one part runs almost parallel with another, and by a few steps across, you save many rods round. In this manner it is greatly lengthened, but made so as to be in no place steep. The mountain is thickly wooded and the trees do not as in a cold latitude become small and stinted on the higher elevations; but when the soil is good, as large and tall as in lower places, and more like those in the forests of temperate climates. They are covered with moss. This mountain and indeed all the mountains of the interior are evidently of primitive formation. After reaching the highest elevation of the road you soon come all at once in sight of this valley in the mountains, about five miles in circuit. It is an undulated plain, through which runs a small river toward the southwest. On the banks of this is the Rhododendron in different places, with beautiful blossoms, the only tree on the plain. The ground gradually ascends on each side with various swells, till it comes to the foot of steep mountains thickly wooded. On the little elevations not far from the foot of these mountains, the few houses in the place are built. There are now but five or six; but two are building. Of the latter, one belongs to the late governor, Sir Edward Barnes. It is nearly finished, and will be a splendid edifice for so retired a place; the expense of it being estimated at 3,000 pounds, which it will probably exceed. The other houses are much like neat cottages in temperate climates, with chim